[capetonianm]

I used to work for a multi-national, travelled globally, for many years. Home is Cape Town but for various reasons I don’t spend as much time as I would like to there.

Retired relatively early, now most of my travel is leisure/VFR, for short haul trips between EU and GB I’m a great supporter of easyJet. I try to travel by rail whenever possible as it’s a lot more pleasant, better for the environment, but unfortunately usually more expensive and less convenient than flying. In fact I see some pretty sound arguments for banning shorthaul flights and forcing the traffic onto rail.

I do some part time consultancy work and lecturing, and have a couple of other business interests.

I’m probably slightly to the right of Attila the Hun, my political heroes are Ian Smith and Enoch Powell, men whose predictions came sadly true in many ways, even if what they wanted was unsustainable. Those of you who disagree, please don’t bother with the abuse and sniping, I’ve heard it all before and I won’t even bother to respond.

[Swissdiver]

LP: A Swiss is following you now…

[rodders]

this is one of the more interesting themes, so here is my contribution, my
first flight was on a Comet 2 of RAF Transport Command in 1966 and I seem to have been traveling ever since……progressing through Britannia’s, an Argosy, Vanguards, Viscounts, Tridents, Comet 4, 1-11, the Boeings from 707 upwards, the Airbuses, and very lucky to travel on Concorde 4 times., and looking forward to the 787 which QR expect to fly on the London route later this year.
Now am the regional head for the MENA region based in the GCC for an international financial institution and fly most weeks either round the region, or to Europe, with a couple of African, US and Asian trips as well each year.
Have been BA Gold for almost 20 years, and also have Gold on QR and GF, and silver on EK.
Overall I have been lucky to do a job I enjoy and get to see a number of fascinating places around the World, as well as living in Libya, Gibraltar, India, Holland, and the Middle East which is a very long way from birthplace in N Ireland..

[JonathanM8]

Now this thread has been re-activated here is my contribution;
Been BA Gold for 17 years (but with different roles in 4 different companies). At one stage also VS Gold and BMI Gold, but now only basic level for AA, LH, VS. I guess a bit of a BA loyalist.
Got my Gold first for doing weekly LHR-MAN’s, plus a few long-haul trips!
Current role has EMEA responsibility so my usual haunts from LHR (& sometimes LCY) are MAN, EDI, GLA, FRA, STR, DUS, MUC, ARN, CPH, OSL, GOT, MAD and AGP. Regular long-haul business trips to BOS, JFK and DEL. Around 6-8 leisure trips a year (recently including AGP, GVA, UVF, MIA future bookings for AGP and CPT)

[Cedric_Statherby]

@Rodders – I cannot claim ever to have flown with RAF Transport Command but I was once winched up into a helicopter after crashing a chieftain tank. As I was 15 at the time and on Army Cadet exercise as a guest of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, Osnabruck, I was not popular with the regulars. Especially the crew who had to repair the tank.

And I have also flown in a Yak-40, a Soviet air force plane of the 60s, reconditioned (-ish) for commercial use in the early post communist era. The airline in question – a Bulgarian outfit called Hemus Air, long since departed – made Ryanair look positively luxurious.

These days, and to get back on thread, I advise governments and central banks worldwide in financial matters. And since the one cardinal rule is that for any meeting they prefer you to go to them not the other way round, I am lucky enough to fly all over the world – some 240 airports so far and counting.

At one stage I had gold on oneWorld (BA), Star and Virgin, but these days gold only on oneWorld. Plus silver on Icelandair …

[TiredOldHack]

“crashing a chieftain tank”

If ever there was a confession that positively shrieks out for further details, this is it…..

[LuganoPirate]

I agree Tired and I’ll second that. More details please Cedric!

[Cedric_Statherby]

My apologies for the delay in replying – I have been consulting my legal advisers about my obligations under the Official Secrets Act! But the story is quite simple.

Many years ago I was an Army Cadet (a British “boy soldier” corps for 15 year olds, to give them a taste of the military). As it happens my cadet corps was attached to the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, and as part of our training we spent 2 weeks with the tank teams in Germany. The highlight was a tank exercise – blues versus reds in a mock battle – and I was “in command” of a tank (under the watchful eye of a regular officer of course).

You make a tank turn a corner by ordering the driver to, for example, “stop left track”. This turns the tank left. But you have to say “restart left track” or it twists the track and puts too much tension in it. And eventually the track snaps. As I found out …

Unfortunately we were on loose boggy ground and without the track, the left side of the tank lurched into the ditch and was stuck solid. This made our tank (a) inoperable and (b) a sitting target for the other side, so we called up a rescue helicopter to get us out of there. (All this time the regular soldiers were splitting their sides laughing at the mess I had got our tank into). Hence the helicopter ride.

I suspect the only people who weren’t laughing were the taxpayers, as even more than 40 years ago, hauling a tank out of the mud and mending a track and damaged wheels cost tens of thousands of pounds. But it was good fun.

Alas though the Army’s time and taxpayers’ money was wasted as I did not join up as a regular, and became an airline road-warrior instead.

[TiredOldHack]

Wonderful. I’m sitting at my desk grinning.

I was in the Air Cadets at Charterhouse, in the early 1970s. We had some horrible antiquated glider that used to be towed the length of the playing fields behind a master’s car, and it would just stagger into the air.

Came the day when there was a sudden burst of headwind and up it went, the kid at the controls slipped the tow, and it sailed into the trees and was written off.

We also had a Link trainer (I wonder how many people remember those?) but I think it was borked because they never let us play with it.

[VintageKrug]

Probably for the best.

A friend got in terrible trouble when his Papa decided to land his helicopter on the lawn rather too close to the main buildings. It was very fun to watch, though!

[TiredOldHack]

Where was that, then?

[epeek06]

Hi all,

24, male, currently reside in Geneva. I’m from Switzerland / Netherlands / Ecuador

Past residences, Paris, London, Harare. I now work as a construction engineer. So I don’t get to travel much for work 🙁

Nevertheless, I’m a BIG aviation fan. Whenever I have the opportunity to fly, I take it.

I always fly a mix of BA, KLM, LX/LH

Anyone who wants to contact me feel free! on twitter @peekmeister

[judynagy]

Oh goodie, a chance to talk about myself. I’m a 6′ blonde, age 55, live in San Francisco and travel for business and pleasure. I manage an office for two high-end financial advisors (one is my husband) with a great staff so I can …. indulge my love of horses by being active with disabled riders and competition around the world. My non-profit ran the first Equestrian at the Atlanta Paralympics in 1996 and we have organized horse shows for 25 years. I eventually got fed up with the stress and international politics, so today I mostly spend my time promoting inclusion in able-bodied events (para-equestrians competed as their own discipline in the Kentucky World Equestrian Games in 2010, a major goal of ours) and being a peon volunteer. No children, so my husband and I are able to travel whenever and wherever we want. I’ve been savvy about airline frequent flyer programs for years, but recently have discovered the value of the hotel loyalty programs and planning trips is now twice as much fun to see what luxury I can snag with the fewest dollars. I hope to be able to enjoy this life for at least the next 50 years; technology has made working and travelling simultaneously so enjoyable. I really love BT’s mag and contributors and feel that I’ve learned 5 times more in the past 5 years than I did in my previous 50.

[lloydah]

Don’t know if you can actually digress back – but here goes. In the Air Cadets at school. Had trips to the flight training school at Hamble. Never forget the instructor screaming into my earpiece whilst I was trying to “drive” his chipmunk but obviously getting it all wrong as I had, and still have, some difficulty remembering which is my left or right hand when panicked.Can only think that the engineers up one of the towers at Fawley had a) a surprise b) change of underwear when we flew round them. Got a hell of a rollicking from the C.O. aka the History master.

[Author]

Posts